


Sui Generis

by Hanahaki_Blood



Category: Hellsing
Genre: Avondale Napyeer, Doc isn't good with feelings, Friendship, Friendship/Love, M/M, Montana Max - Freeform, POV First Person, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, a little sad a little strange, a relationship between two men that could never define it even if they tried, an old work with new ending, wounds all over the place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2020-12-28 15:10:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21138734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hanahaki_Blood/pseuds/Hanahaki_Blood
Summary: "Strange how fate’s paths tangle and people collide, isn’t it? Like a car crash, the mere difference being that you won’t feel the wound caused after the first Hello. No. The wounds come later. But then, they hit you full force either way."The Doctor remembers his first meeting with the Major, only to come to the conclusion that some things simply aren't meant to end.





	Sui Generis

The coffee in front of me is a thick, bitter broth. As gloomy as my mind too, though I wasn’t courageous enough yet to pluck my own brain apart as I've done hundred others in my life.

I ordered it ten minutes ago. Now it gets cold and I do nothing but watch my faint reflection quivering on its dark surface. I flick a fingertip against the edge of the cup and the image blurs further, distorting while the liquid rolls and sways in small surges. So quick to lose concept, so easy to step out of line, isn’t it? This blur of self in my coffee I can identify more with than with this spitting image the mirror provides. This skewed and scraped silhouette of man isn’t too alien to me.

And to you, it has become one of the closest confidants you either had the luck or misfortune to call your own.

Isn’t that right, Herr Major? It's been a terrible while since we last met.

I remember you covered in blood, your eyes ruptured with pain, ever closer to death than life. I remember saving you, naturally, patching you up like I had done so many times before, a stubborn child with a still hand refusing to give up his favored ragdoll. How often did I offer to free you of your turmoil, declare you as honored war veteran whose wounds deemed too severe to endure another battle? An early retirement, yes, this I wanted to give you so you’d be allowed your leave home. I’ve lost count of the ways you took these well-meant words with indignation, rejection clear as dew and unwavering in nature. How you’d turn around and stagger towards carnage once more.

Granted, I could’ve thought you nothing more but one of those sick men that feasted on war like hyenas on rotten meat.

I’ve insulted you, accused you to break yourself into tiny, meaningless pieces for none but the thrill of it. All you did was laugh and tell me I shouldn’t worry.

Fool. It wasn’t worry I felt, least for _you,_ a soldier plain and sqare as the rest of them, a creature seeking blood and destruction like a hungry infant would its mother’s breast. The insane came to my infirmary everyday, hundreds of them. Did you really think you'd be of any different material? Special?

Who knows.

But when you didn’t want to die and requested me as your doctor on repeat, memorized my name, yelled it on the brink of faint, you became just that, I suppose. Special, if only in my eyes. A fascinating and bizarre kind. I wouldn’t have dealt with you longer than necessary if you hadn’t been bizarre to begin with.

Strange how fate’s paths tangle and people collide, isn’t it? Like a car crash, the mere difference being that you won’t feel the wound caused after the first _Hello_. No. The wounds come later. But then, they hit you full force either way.

Your words attracted me at last, I assume, cast me in your spell. You had this compelling way to describe your reasons, hardly ever catching your breath as if in ardent belief you wouldn’t experience tomorrow to tell me all that boiled in that fickle mind of yours. I think after I stitched up your left leg for the sixth time (or was it the seventh? Nevermind), you started to tell me more about yourself than your health record required. With fervor, you spoke about the bloody goings at the front, explaining wide-eyed how uplifting it was to be involved in the deadly struggle – man against man. With a mixture of disgust, horror and slowly growing understanding I listened to your euphoric voice. Grinning proudly, you said you wouldn’t even fear death. You were fine with it all as long as you found yourself on the battlefield in the end, in the midst of blood, with bullets and corpses turning to dust.

I cut it short then, asked about your family. If they’d not be sad hearing that you’ve died in the war.

This was the first and only time I saw your fanatical eyes turn dull. You looked away to inspect the gray sheets of the hospital bed beneath you. You said there’d be no one waiting for you at home. This here, this war, even this infirmary was your true and only refuge. You would die in the lifeless company of men with whom you had fought side by side. You called them your brothers, dearest relatives in the endless loop of massacre.

And me, of all of them, you called… your friend.

I choked on my water, setting the glass aside as a terrible coughing fit cramped up my lungs. You merely added an indefinable smile to my unflattering reaction, patted my back while I tried not to suffocate on my own harsh breaths. A witty remark in between, probably, which I didn’t even spare a comment for. I was no humorous person, never aimed at being one. I could never see the point of jokes. It was none but a waste of time to delight in nonsensical, poorly researched facts.

_I like you_, _Doc _you said, still grinning broadly, _Your mind is a true example of sui generis_.

It’s been years yet I still wonder what would have been the proper reaction to this remark. Should I’ve agreed with you? Be offended? I gave a grave nod instead, a serious expression attached. It made you laugh. Sui generis, in my book, correlated closely with unnormal. And unnormal, I’d say, might apply to my nonexisting social skills. I’ve never been good with people. But you’d have had to be blind _and_ deaf not to have figured that out by then. Still, you called for me, not accepting another man to clean your wounds.

See, people are confusing, childish, impossible to understand. Science is easier. Science consists of concrete formulas, equations and perfect, imperturbable logic. People, however, are prone to burst with emotions, hormones, and other unimportant bits and pieces. A disastrous combination. You knew that, too.

We remained both silent until I had tightened the bandage around your leg. But it was, if I can judge it at all, a pleasant silence.

We shook hands, just as we did each time before you left. You were barely out of the tent when I suddenly felt the (completely incomprehensible) urge, to say another farewell.

“Don’t die before I do.” I called after you.

You stopped dead in your tracks and all that coursed through me was embarassment. It was a pathetic attempt to offer up something amusing too. I don’t know why I felt compelled, why I wanted to prove you that I wasn’t entirely abnormal. But apparently I had achieved the exact opposite of what I wanted to prove. Because you laughed, an uproar of sound, then moved again.

“I'll try.” you replied over your shoulder.

Then, you were gone. Again, on your way to the front. To this day I’m not sure how to describe my state of mind at the time.

I only knew one thing, and this only after hours of careful consideration.

I would have been happier if you hadn’t left this time.

I didn’t see you for two years.

Quite a span, I’d say. I was afraid you had died and your body crumbled with those of your comrades on the field, buried in dirt and insects. It was the most logical outcome of your insane fuss. And yet, somehow, I did not quite believe it either since I caught myself to look up from my notes, expecting you to hobble back into the tent like you had done so many times before, covered in new injuries and imperiously calling my name. It was an illusion, a hope so flimsy and thin-skinned it could hardly keep itself alive.

Now, however, I'm sitting in this dark room with this dark coffee in hand that’s long grown cold. Waiting for you.

I was ordered out of the camp and brought right here, left to wait for no less than three hours in total. The reason for said relocation emerged in the form of a letter. An escort consisting of military officials followed shortly after, managing the feat of scaring my colleagues like no protruding organs or blackened leg stumps would do. My own jaw dropped when I saw your signature on the envelope. And even more incredible: Your rank. Deputy of the Fuehrer.

The title curled up in my mind, sprawled and rotated like a carousel, having me imagine myself in it, tied and locked, screaming into the blinding lights. I flopped into my chair, growing dizzy with realization. _You_ were the Deputy of the Fuhrer? Suddenly it all came back to me, every time I had scolded you for your lacerations like a little boy unable to tie his own shoes, our conversations, my bickering, your love for war, my academic dreams, the way you looked at me. How could I’ve overlooked such an important detail? The Deputy of the Fuehrer had never appeared in public before. In fact, he’d become part of the country’s well-known folklore; everyone knew he existed, yet his identity remained obscured in order not to attract any attacks. And here I was to learn that I spent several months with the second most powerful man of Germany and hadn’t paid him the respect he deserved – not even once. I deemed you nothing but a foot soldier, how could I think otherwise, even your face was ordinary!

A soldier's uniform, a small, pudgy stature, short, blonde hair, formed into a strange side parting, wearing glasses. Golden eyes burning into my brain.

Nervously, my fingertips patted the table surface. You had written to me, asked for us to meet in order to discuss “life changing“ measures. I’ve been awaiting this meeting with mixed feelings. Now that I know who you are, I can’t imagine how to behave towards you. Will you strut in like a peacock and look at me with a mocking grin of triumph? Or will you be reserved and cool for I stand much lower in the food chain than you? Questions, questions accumulate in my head, and I don’t dare to answer a single one.

The click of the door lock freezes my thoughts and I’m nearly grateful for it. I try to collect myself. What will happen to me? What are your plans? I'm just a scientist of weird intention, a doctor of many.

I’m nothing you could need.

You have not changed at all.

While you’re wearing a far nobler uniform, draped with medals, you're still as I painted you in mind. Well, maybe you have gained a bit more weight around your waist, but after two years of silence I probably shouldn’t be this picky. Your smile is the same too, worn on display like a trophy or a sword. But you use it not to threaten me, I’ve never felt discomfort regarding that smile. Confusion, if anything. But that's typical for me, especially when it comes to those silly… emotions.

“Doc, it’s so good to see you,” you greet me loudly.

There lies, I believe, a sincere joy in your voice. Like an arrow strung tight, I jump up and salute.

”I’ve also been looking forward to our reunion, Mr. Stellvertreter!”

Taken aback, you lift a brow in irritation. I can’t blame you. A few moments ago even I was unaware of the force a mere title can have according to one’s manners.

Puzzled and ashamed, I sit back down, folding my hands in my lap, and aim my view to the table surface. I hear your footsteps approach, how you settle into the chair opposite mine with a decisive thump. The table isn’t large, therefore, this room probably appears so empty to me - except for this table, there is no furniture. I suspect this is an ancient space, used for special meetings or for interrogation. Of course I can only guess, but I hope that I have _not _been invited to an interrogation. I can dimly remember to have told you of my true passion, addressing people as experimental subjects with a touch of hurried credulity. In retrospect, some fools would call me insane, alienated from reality**. **I’ve always prone to be a misfit no matter the sort.

I glance up from under my glasses just to see how you discard your coat. I hope to not have misjudged you, hope you haven’t come to expose yourself as one of these imbeciles who nod off my visions winningly to frame them as sick prattling later. Or worse, merely return to drop me in a psychiatry.

You look at me upfront, your eyes still golden and fanatical. You’re truly the same man you’ve been two years ago. Aren’t you?

“Now, now, there's no need to be formal now.” You sound a bit more cheerful after the initial shock. Strangely enough, I can almost taste the sudden uncertainty it hides. “We know each other well enough to be spared of such annoying banter.”

“Do we?” This serene talk nibbles on my nerves. I cross my arms in front of my chest. “If so, why did you never tell me who you really are? Since the first moment I saw you, I thought you to be someone else. I don’t think we know each other as well as you might believe.” My light fit of rage, however, lifts a smile from your thin lips.

“I’m sure you’re aware why I had to keep my true identity under lock. I wanted it this way – then again, I couldn’t do otherwise. What would you say if I told you about the horrible kinds of torture that had been awaiting you if someone had overheard our discussions by accident? Also in German camps the enemy’s spies may occur. Had I let you in on my little secret, you could have suffered fatal consequences. And I… really didn’t want something happen to you. That would have been a pity for the both of us.”

Again, a confusing statement in which you put an unspoken compliment. I wonder, am I supposed to be happy about this or not? This explanation seems plausible enough. And yet.

„Why have you disguised yourself as a foot soldier? You could have died out there every single day. Why did you expose yourself to such risks instead of maintaing your place at the Fuehrer’s side?”

A laugh. Cheerful, ill. Can’t you be serious for once?

“The leader gets along splendidly without me. Besides, you know how I feel about the war. Why should a simple rank refuse me the joy of blood-soaked battles and burning earth? Moreover, without my decision to stay at the front all these years, I’d certainly have never met you. And when I think about it, your anonymity would have been a mighty loss to all of us.“ A certain gleam springs up your eye, widening the pupil. „Especially if one considers your revolutionary ideas and plans.”

I knew it. Two years, and you haven’t forgotten anything. I clear my throat and roll my shoulders. Well then.

“If this is so,_ friend_, I'd like to know exactly why you ordered me here. I demand a full explanation.”

“I’ll grant it to you. You have no idea how much I missed having a nice chat." You snap your fingers, as if you’d forgotten something. „But first off, let us order some cake!” I raise a quizzical brow.

"Cake. You want to order cake. Now." The gleam only intensifies.

"Yes! I'm starving."

"Of course you are." I sigh, and suddenly, the want to laugh overcomes me like the plague, being reminded of that one occassion where you'd been pumped full of morphine, blabbering about swimming in a sea of strawberry syrup, asking me for a breadstick to use as paddle.

Just like that, or as I like to memorize it, I accept my fate, whatever that might be. With cake and laughter. If I concentrate just enough, I see me back in that room, my chin perched on the roof of my interlinked hands, watching you watching me. "They don't happen to have Black Forest cake, do they?"

Your grin is the only bright thing in the darkness that closes the scene, as wide as the blade of Zorin's scythe is going to be, telling me, indeed, they have.

***

Following this meeting, my whole life turned upside down.

I was brought forward into a world infested with creatures of the night and genetically impossible figures. You arranged a position as scientist for me, talking to the Fuehrer in personal so I’d get all the material I needed. Heaven on earth could not have been sweeter. I made my dreams come true under your watchful eye, experimented with genes, mixed human with animal, emerged as second Frankenstein. It was my paradise. And I saw you more often than ever. Almost every week you met me, invited me to places outside the lab (to refuel my need on fresh air, apparently), asked about my progress, and I was willing to present it to you.

My first successful creation was a mixture bred of cat and human female. I was beyond proud to have created something so revolutionary in such a short amount of time. I had born a new race. Unfortunately, the leader decided to see this… differently. He wanted me to make tough soldiers from the treadmill, no pretty girls with tails to pull at.

However, in the end it was not in vain. We received Schrödinger as a result and although he proves incredibly naughty at times, his unique ability to be everywhere and nowhere has always been a sensational ability for you. _Schrödinger will be our trump card, Doc, just wait! _you said, grinning at me. I knew you so well by then I believed you unconditionally.

And so it began.

You set everything in motion to take me under your command, and when the Fuehrer finally agreed to our Millennium project - the creation of an army consisting of none but artificially created vampires – you invited me for dinner to celebrate the news. You ordered the material needed, I used my brain as I always have. I tried to never disappoint you, and you never gave up on forcing the creation of a profound bond with me.

I never really understood why it was me you chose to be close to your heart; considered me as your friend even. You made sure I always stayed by your side by having me act as your counselor, your doctor and your right hand while Hans Günsche stepped in as your bodyguard using his gorgeous skills.

This went on for several years until Alucard and Walter came and found us. They destroyed all our achievements in a single night. But we did not give up. You spoke of revenge, of a new and better war… You spoke of bringing death to the No-Life King.

And of course, you were right. You were always right.

It was Schrödinger we had to thank for our retribution at last. And it was pretty while it lasted. But it did not last for long.

After everything is said and done, I take my notes out the drawers while the zeppelin’s insides threaten to collapse around me. You stayed at headquarters, fighting your last battle with the Hellsing woman. I know you won’t return. I'll never see you again. There’s barely time left to save my own life, and yet my movements slow deliberately when I think back to our first meeting and beyond.

All the things you told me. All the dreams you’ve shared, and eventually became my own. Major, are you dead already? I can’t feel your presence anymore. Perhaps, I have stopped feeling as a whole.

And maybe it's better this way.

You've got what you always wanted. The ultimate war. Your death will take place in the middle of an enormous battlefield named London. What about me? I'm alone again. That's fine, I don’t depend on company nor need one in truth. My research goes with me. Even your death I take as indifferently as one would an unrelated birth. It happens every day, this death, and it was no surprise that it would happen sometime soon, was it? You spoke of it often enough. You looked forward to it like a child awaiting the first snow of winter, hurling christmas in.

We exchanged no words of farewell. No handshake. I doubt we even considered to actually die here when at the same time it was the first thing we were sure about.

I wonder if grief should burden me. Rage? Disappointment, perhaps. I have never been good with feelings. I’m certainly not going to start getting better at them now. I probably shouldn’t think too much about how your body must lie in the dust for real, forgotten and rusty and rotten. How your eyes look into the distance, glassy and lifeless. It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth all the same.

To hell with it. To hell with the past, with Alucard, with England, even you. I have to save my research before it falls victim to the flames as well.

Otherwise, I really have nothing left but death.

I have to start all over again. Find new ways to improve my results, revolutionize them. You’d understand this. You always did.

Time I have enough, my body is timeless, I can patch up myself over and over again. I kept you alive by slowly turning you into a machine after all, why shouldn’t I accomplish the same? But although you were a cyborg, it didn’t make you less of a man. And you died, as a man. If anything, You've affirmed it to me often enough.

I see the jagged output before me. I can reach it easily while the ceiling’s breaking into fractures. Straightway I run through the demolished transitions, fleeing over rotting corpses. I have to be quick, inconspicuous. You may not know that I'm still alive. Suddenly I see the sunlight shining through the ajar crack of a steel door hanging onto that one hinge left for dear life. I step outside, leave the Zeppelin for good. You surely won’t take it as offense that I don’t want to die here with you. I’ve never been a soldier to lay with. Maybe I could be in another life, if someone out there is gracious enough to have us meet under better circumstances as these again. And yet, I doubt we’d ever allow grace as the place-holder to lead our path. We’re just not the type for it. I guess, you could say, we were both _sui generis_ in the end.

As I walk through the opening and towards a new beginning, I feel something wet running down my cheek. I ignore it. I’m sure it’s just one of these annoying feelings that I don’t know what to do with.

_Don’t die before I do._ That’s what I said, all these years ago.

_I’ll try. _was your answer.

I stop in my tracks before the light’s warmth reaches up my ankle.

_I’ll try._

You really did, didn’t you? You tried. Until you didn’t.

I take a deep breath. Then, I keep walking. I always keep walking. Backwards into the hell you called me, _mein Freund_.

***

You open your eye in the semi-darkness of a scarcely-furnished room, scraps of wallpaper rolling down the floor, the tang of mold and some forgotten animal carcass hanging in the air. The stark shine of a floor lamp illuminates the gore of your leftover face as you lie on a table that moans with your weight. The eye you can move just fine squints at the sudden brightness.

I don’t move to turn your face nor do I dim the light to make it easier for you. The selfish part in me says you don’t deserve easy – not for what you’ve almost done. To the world. To me.

Seated in shadows, back straight as an arrow, I watch your broken parts take in your surroundings as much as they’re able to, your system that aches with creaks and beeps and the missing heat of artificially red fluid flooding the remnants of Acrilan veins. Maybe you already guess I’ve used plain coolant this time and had you enough wits left, you’d resent me for it. With Alucard and his victims gone off the spot, all their blood conjoined, I couldn’t fetch enough corpses to arrange a decent transfusion. Granted, I was in the additional hurry of hot-wiring a getaway car and drag your rubbish of a body into the back seat before flooring the gas pedal to the outskirts of London and beyond.

„Well, this is not _das Ritz-Carlton_,“ is the first coherent sentence to slip through the ragged corner of your mouth, millenia later, it seems. I release a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Good. The linguistic system hasn’t been nearly as damaged as your vital organ section, but I have a habit of playing things safe. I continue to wait, sparse-breathed, though even I can’t decide what to expect next. You make the decision for me by turning the feeble joint that keeps your neck connected to your torso into my direction, eliciting a jarring sound most horrible for sensitive ears. Of course, you knew of my presence the moment you jerked awake. Of course. Your to-be-mouth contorts to a half-grin. Your eye, maniacal as ever, watching without pupil dilation, focuses on me.

„Hey, Doc! Be so kind and ring up the boss, will ya? I think hell’s put us in the wrong apartment.“

„You’re not dead.“ My tone’s aloft with spite. I wish I could acknowledge our reunion (yet again) by cooking up cheer in my voice, or any other positive notion buried somewhere inside the relationship (may I call it that?) we’ve built throughout the years, but the weight of you managing to kill yourself in earnest leaves no space for acting. I don’t know how to behave in this situation, unable to part soft from harsh, wrong from right. We’re aware of our secrets now. „And before you ask, I’m not either. Yet.“

„Oh.“ You close your eye (in disappointment, I assume), grin jittery but stable enough. „Well, that’s good! I appreciate seeing you a last time, in the flesh. You can let me die for real now.“

The fact that I’m barely surprised for you to make this request further proves how well we've come to know each other – this is how you’d say it. I can't assert to have memorized each of your quirks down the root, but some phrases never dare to leave my mind, in fear they’d catch me off guard.

I rise from the chair, my fractured glasses a bottle green glimmer to rip an aisle into the gloom, drawing my rickety shape as I leap towards you. (Ignore my predicament, I’ll fix it up later.) The instruments I stole from the abandoned innards of a dentist's office beckon me as berries would a bird. My hand, slightly shaking with your eyebrow raised (don't say it), plows through dull-washed scalpels, dried-up sponges, two rolls of sellotape, a cloud of dirt-caked cotton and a plastic bag with indefinable cargo in whose brown slag a new bacterial strain is certainly wafting.

„I’m afraid this stays out of question, Herr Major. Now that you’ve shown to be responsive, I’ll initiate further operations.“ Your eye widens.

„Huh?“

I pick the one still sharp under the rust, hoping it will be enough to cut through the skin coat I've strengthened layer by layer throughout the years. I never liked picking apart my own work. All the mishaps, the places I was too impatient to enhance at the time, the failure of it itching open before me, glory, gore and dented iron. I'd need a needle, more thread and a soldering iron to close up what Lady Hellsing and her bitch have pulled off and away. For now, a lousy patch-up must do.

„Don’t move.“ I warn by placing the cutting edge below the abdominal wall. There's a leak, tiny as a grain of sand, spitting liquid no matter how much I refill the container. I suspect its location close under the thicket of scrap metal that rises like a desolate outgrowth along the extremities and out the leg stump. A pile of junk, pressed to the shape of a human being barely a day ago, diligently adjusted, the paint a skin tone, lifelike in the good light.

You offered me passport photos and other photographs as samples, but I didn't use any. Stature, mannerisms, the very flesh and how it moved; all had become as familiar to me as the seams I added into the latter whereever they were needed most.

Your head snaps back in its starting position, the tormenting light shielded by the funnel-shaped wreath of my hair. That mouth corner-smile again, not half, not whole. This time, there lies something pathetic etched within. But then again; hasn’t it always been there?

„Hey, I mean it. Stop this, it’s over. The war’s over. We had such fun, didn’t we?“

I have no anaesthetic present, but pain has never really bothered you. If anything, pain is the prominent feature that makes us alive, makes us human. Among other urges, of course. And you love being human. By the way your face’s tries to contort yet can’t, however, it’s easy to realize that if you had been able to, you’d have squirmed away from my touch, hit me, perhaps. Nonetheless, I cut in, and I cut through. You’re not the first patient to attend my treatment involuntarily. If we make it in one piece out of England, you certainly won't be the last. A hot gush of fluid coats my fingers and creeps along the length of the table.

„Stop poking me there! That's an order –"

„Max.“ The letters come out in an exasperated sigh. I don't remember having referred to you by first name during this decade or the last one. Sometimes, I forget you’d actually react to anything _but_ your title as our plan came close to final fruition. You must remember this too since your speech halts immediately. I adjust the lamp’s focus and draw the sharp edge deeper into manufactured flesh with you twitching barely in response. „Our army is gone, the zeppelins burned. You have no authority here. My doings are that of a doctor, not of your subordinate.“

I can’t force my tone as strict as my hands are busy. Admittably, I’m pleased you’re still able to close your hand to a fist, frail sign of reluctance, sheer power of will – however meek the pressure and erratic the movement may be.

Will. It’s what kept you on your feet through all these years. I simply added the body to help sustain it in this realm a little longer.

„I’m supposed to – I should be buried among my –“

„– brothers in arms, yes. I’ve been getting that the other 300 times you gave me the picture of your demise.“ I’d have pinched the bridge of my nose, but there’s no room with my hands full. „Let us not argue over trifle matters now. You need rest.“

„Nothing about this is trifle.“ Your tone grows biting. Losing your composure, Herr Major? I wouldn’t dare to ask. „Avondale, I mean what I said. It's time."

Returning the favor. It’s courtesy, if anthing. And yes, my name from your lips strikes a cord though not a pleasant one. You only call me by name when you’re serious, scared or completely out of your mind. Indeed, the first time you did was –

My hands freeze in their task. The memory crushes back on me like a boulder. A red world. The mass echo of gun fire and the screams of our men being hopelessly mauled. A sky caught in flame. You among the flesh that would never yield again.

„Do you remember Berlin?“

Occupied with planning revolt against my doings, you halt in motion, echoing mine with surprise.

„…What?“

„Berlin, 1944. When I found you there, all broken and beaten up by the Soviets.“ Strictly, I command my hand to reach to the left though it struggles to lift, the pad of my thumb meeting resistance and damp. The liquid dies down with a soundless dribble. Holding the spot, I reach for the sellotape and all the cotton there is. Not much. Will do. „When you were crawling forward on one arm, the other a raw bundle of bone and your legs just as useless, fleeing from something I couldn’t see. Something you yelled at. Remember what you screamed when I pulled you away and into the backseat of the car?“

You open your mouth by instinct, but no sound climbs past your gums. Berlin._ Berlin_. The city of cities, built on bone and jaw, polished, martyred jewel. We have never returned there, not once. I wonder if the prospect of seeing it one last time would give you back your will to live. But no; you wouldn't like it there now. This isn't our Berlin anymore.

When the words escape you at last, they're as much history as our home.

„Don’t let it take me.’“

„_Don’t let it take me_. I won’t let it take you now, either. Neither will I give death a chance.“ Quickly, I mull over what else to say, what more truth there is that needs to be said aloud, that keeps you from refusing my measures though I know none will, not really, not for long.

„You’ve walked away from me before. 44 times, to be precise.“ I pause. My apologies; it’s more to myself than you. Breathing in, the number, all of a sudden, drags a harsh laugh from my lungs. „All those 44 times, I’ve waited for you to come back… until you didn't. However, you promised me to try. And since I’m a selfish bastard, I chose to lend you a helping hand in this matter. Wouldn't you agree that this could be in your interest, too?“

For a while there is an inaudible competition between your silence and my steady take of breath echoing with unusual brashness in this small, worn out room. Being stuck for an answer is not your nature, especially not when it comes to me. It takes a lot to irritate you, but this might be the second time that the reason’s caught in your past; well, _our_ past, no matter how you look at it.

I have never lowered my needle deeper under the scab of your wound called_ family_ than my own decency allowed me – where this might be an irony to those whom I forbade morphine so as not to falsify the test results – and you, though never starting it yourself, not even while drunk, an occasion rare as a lunar eclipse, have always fondly allowed and resented my restraint. In turn, you’ve never investigated my own family background, at least not to my knowledge, and throttling people behind my back for information is not like you. You were not interested in my past. You took me as I was the day you were assigned to me in the sick bay. I, young, busy, seized with a violent temper and completely unchallenged with my tasks; you, younger though not much, euphoric, freshly led to the slaughterhouse gate, dared to put one foot in it, almost lost it when it closed again – by all means, the most miserable shooter I’ve ever come to know.

You looked at me and I looked at you. You smiled. And that was that.

"That was a long time ago. Maybe I wasn't too honest in my promise.“ The bodkin of your voice pricks my ears and forces me out of my head. My hands still rummage in your guts. The leak seems successfully plugged; no more fluid escapes to where it shouldn’t go. "Maybe," I say slowly, as if in need to learn the English language anew. My head swims. Concentrate, Avondale. A little longer. “To us, time has become a concept. Its rules can’t touch us anymore. Nor do lies. Not here."

You smile. I never know where you find your humor in all this. Thanks to your condition, it actually looks like you're having a seizure. We'll have to fix that soon – it would be a risk if you were to attract attention in the crowd. Which reminds me, we need different clothes as well. We need to create the opposites of ourselves.

"I guess.“ Your eye rolls down, direction to the has-been leg. Seeing the chaos, your giggle rises, varies in tone. "There is no more blood to lure me though. I sent every drop of it down Alucard’s personal inferno. Everything went according to plan."

The giggling stops abruptly and your gaze lands on me and my hands as I wipe them off a shred of my coat in habit. "I told you so, didn't I? I told you we’d win.“

Your tone draws on the little strength that triumph lends you, like maggots holding onto a chewed up apple core. For a moment, it summons the old self-confidence you embared all your speeches and hymns in, urging our followers to shout for joy before moving out towards their destiny. For a moment, the impression of old glory chastens our predicament, along with the rat-eaten holes in the walls and the overpowering smell of mold offending my still-functioning nose.

Your upper body has slighty raised at the illusion, a miracle in itself, but not one I can deal with now. I put my hand on your shoulder and press you back down on the tabletop, gently, but firmly. It is a flowing act, so naturally woven into my contractile muscle tissue that it is less intention than instinct that carries my hand to its place.

"You have,' I say quietly. Your eye, widened by reflex, narrows in answer until there’s no more but a slit to spot – a cut of gold surrounded, ventured in darkness, the eyelid torn in two, and the rest of the flesh from which most of the lacquer has broken off and dressed the ground long gone. "And now, you need rest." I retract my hand. You grab for it, catch my wrist. Only your forefinger and little finger actually attempt to wrap around the bones enclad in skin and chemicals. I bow back down as a mother would to her attention-seeking child. Schrödinger made me get used to it. For the first time, his absence fully registers in my mind. Great. Another unaware pain to rip me past my thighs and dissect later.

„I hit her, you know?“ The shine in your eyes weakens already, clouded by the new-found taste for exhaustion, but your fingers stay bend like claws. Good. It means you want to cling at least to something. „The woman. I aimed and shot, and she bled! It was… the first time I’ve ever hit something.“

„That’s good,“ I say quietly. „A victory in each and every case. Now go to sleep.“ Your half-face crumples in disappointment.

„Is that all?“_ All there is._ I tilt my head. What do you expect? What do you want me to give you? What could I have that you require now? War is all you ever wanted, but it will (speaking of luck) take decades till you’re ready for a new one. I saved what I could of my research, but our manpower has subsided to plain zero. We're an army of two. How pitiful, compared to what we were. I don't think we've ever been this low on the food chain before.

Then again, that’s not quite true. It’s always been us in a way. And the Captain, perhaps. The others were just… how would you say? Ah. Padding.

It is then that my eyes slightly widen behind my glasses, realization wrecking through me like an aftershock. I reach out again; this time not to restrain you, but to weave my gloved fingers through your hair, pick some blood-blond strands to situate behind your intact ear. Have I ever done this before, I can’t recall. Perhaps while in the sickbay, you being unconscious and sweaty with fever, mumbling, and oh, how it annoyed me.

Like pressing a switch, your expression grows pliant, though not too much. Yearning for something too forbidden to put a name on it. Keep composure, see?

Old friend, the time when you could have fooled me, is long over. There’s no one left to hear your speeches, no one alive to have your love for war poured into like absinthe. There’s only me, the one you put such effort in to keep me close, to manifest me as rule in the chaos enfolding.

Me, who, with the vision of resting next to fallen comrades, was always meant to symbolize that one precise feeling you sought in war but also in other people’s eyes, given the looks you’d send, many unanswered, many ignored. Familiarity. <strike>Family.</strike>

„Depends. How many times did you have to reload your gun for this phantasmal attempt? I remember your last quite vividly.“

„Now you’re being mean.“ A tame protest.

„I’ve always been,“ is the only logical response to give. My hand maps the dented shape of your skull. „Sleep. When you wake again, we’ll make plans to get out of here.“ You give a last dry chuckle, still not quite believing you're alive or that I am. Then, your eyelids droop and your head sinks aside, sated and plump. Trust. It’s been rare where we come from. The room's silent again.

I was hoping you had a backup plan in case you’d survive. As I watch you drifting into that dreamless blackness you’ve come to know (you only dream when you’re awake), I can almost hear your sarcasm spicing the air. _Verzeihung. My plan was, solely, _to die_._ I sigh. I feared just this. Conclude then, lay your facts out, draw a face. What's the next step? Find more scrap metal to shove into that smorgasbord of a once-body, make a tin-man work again. Tag along the way as is your role.

Yes. That's a plan at least. We’ll gather the remains and lay low for awhile. We’ll restore ourselves the best we can. For the next war, the next century; perhaps, the next millenia.

All I know for sure is: Whatever you wish to do, I won’t be missing at your side. You will shout, I will follow.

And I’ll be there to patch you up whenever the need arises.


End file.
